The Summerland site, one of the island’s most high-profile brownfield locations, may finally have a future.
Enterprise Minister Laurence Skelly revealed this week that the site would be used as a proving ground for an agency to drive urban regeneration.
Empty since the second Summerland was demolished in 2006, the site has been subject to several failed attempts at redevelopment including a proposal by the Sefton Group for a leisure centre called The Wave.
The site will be used by government in an attempt to prove that its proposed development agency, designed to drive urban regeneration, has teeth and can be a success.
Mr Skelly said that the agency came from a recommendation by a committee which explored how to encourage development on brownfield sites and was approved by Tynwald in late 2018.
The Council of Ministers then agreed to support a ’proof of concept’ special purpose vehicle (SPV) on a government-owned site to determine if the agency could be a success. They chose Summerland.
Mr Skelly added: ’Council agreed that a proof of concept should be established through a trial SPV in the first instance as the next step towards the creation of a formal development agency, recognising that further detailed discussions were required with the private sector, local authorities and Treasury.
’These discussions are now being planned and trial SPV project will help inform the final remit of the development agency.’
Bill Shimmins (Middle) who had asked Mr Skelly in the House of Keys for a progress report on the Manx Development Agency, said that it was ’unclear when we’re going to see the progress that has been articulated’.
However, Mr Skelly said that the full agency would only come after the Summerland trial had been completed.
Chris Robertshaw (Douglas East) said that he is concerned over ’how familiar we have got’ with some of the brownfield sites around Douglas since he first sought election in 2006 and called for more ’drive’ from government.
He added: ’Where other cities in the UK have reinvented themselves in that time, we have been stumbling around with words.’
Mr Skelly responded that the government believed in a phased approach with the trial SPV and that it would involve many government departments.
Mr Shimmins remained unimpressed and highlighted that Jersey has had a development agency for 24 years. He said: ’It seems disappointing he [Mr Skelly] feels he needs to prove a project that has been proved in so many other places and it fails a faint-hearted commitment to a one-site pilot.’
The Middle MHK also accused Mr Skelly’s approach of being ’timid and ponderous’.
Mr Skelly denied this and repeated that ’this is about proving a concept’ and noted that Summerland has ’been a problematic site for decades’.
He added: ’I couldn’t think of any site that we more want to see some real action.
’What I will say is that outside of this, there is significant investment actually happening.
’The level of interest in regards to inward investment on urban sites, and others, particularly in and around Douglas, is very encouraging.’
Onchan MHK Julie Edge asked Mr Skelly why his department was treating this agency differently to others which have been created without a proof of concept focused on one issue.
Mr Skelly said that other agencies in DfE ’are not the same as what has been recommended’. Instead, the development agency will create new jobs for civil servants and require directors to run it, as well as new legislation.
No further details were given about what development may be built at the Summerland site but Mr Skelly said that an announcement was not far away.
In 2009 a complex called The Wave was planned, which would have included a cinema, bowling, ice skating, a casino and conference facilities, but this came to nothing.
In 2015, it appeared a deal was about to be done, but the preferred bidder then went into administration and the Summerland site, at the far end of Douglas promenade, went back on the market, where it has remained since.
Manx Independent
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